Medical professionals like to have scientific backing for everything they do. When a patient comes in with a list of symptoms, we like numbers to quantify and qualify what we see. And testing for mercury toxicity can be tricky because it is stored all over the body.
The three most common ways to test for mercury toxicity are testing blood, hair, and urine.
Blood test: A blood test primarily measures methyl mercury and shows the amount of free flowing mercury in the body. It will also detect mercury that was eaten from fish and other seafood, as well as fish oil and other supplements. Think about this test as a snapshot – it measures what’s going on in the blood at this moment, but not what is trapped in the tissue. That’s why solely doing a blood test may not be an accurate way to measure heavy metal/mercury chronic toxicity.
Hair Test: A mercury hair analysis can be used to detect methyl mercury exposure, and shows how slowly or quickly a body removes mercury. But this test has similar limitations to the blood test.
Urine test: This test measures the amount of mercury that is being filtered through the kidneys, rather than just the mercury free-flowing in blood that is mostly from food, like in the blood. Before this test, do not eat fish or seafood. Seafood naturally has higher amounts of mercury and it may skew results. It is also best to give a urine sample that is the first morning void.
The Quicksilver Tri test also measures how well your kidneys and liver filter the mercury through their organs. If the organ is depressed, supplementation may be necessary prior to treatment. We recommend you choose a heavy metal detox specialist to work with you on detoxification before and after your procedure. Because we are not nutritionists, medical doctors or detox specialists, we do not prescribe a detox protocol for you and it is highly recommended for you to work with a professional. Please ask us for recommendations of providers if you are in need of one.